by
John Bednarowskisportseditor@mdjonline.comThe Marietta Daily Journal

February 12, 2014 05:48 PM | 2256 views | 9 | 6 | |

As snow and ice fell across the metro-Atlanta area Tuesday night and throughout Wednesday, it became obvious there were going to be more changes to schedules for the region basketball tournaments.

Now, no events will begin until at least Friday, and it appears as if the Region 4AAAAAA and 5AAAAA tournaments are being impacted the hardest.

Last Monday, the Georgia High School Association gave tournament organizers the option of having teams play two games in one day, as long as they were given at least 4 hours of rest in between.

McEachern athletic director Jimmy Dorsey said that is an avenue Region 4AAAAAA will be forced to take.

The girls tournament will begin with two sessions at Harrison, beginning at 1:30 p.m. Friday. Session 1 will be the two games originally scheduled for Monday — North Cobb-South Cobb, followed by Kennesaw Mountain-Pebblebrook at 3 p.m.

Session 2 will immediately follow with Harrison-Marietta at 5:30 p.m. with Campbell facing the North Cobb-South Cobb winner at 7 p.m. and Hillgrove against the Kennesaw Mountain-Pebblebrook winner at 8:30 p.m.

The boys tournament, which remains at McEachern, will follow the same format.

Friday’s first session will be Kennesaw Mountain-South Cobb at 1:30 p.m., with North Cobb-Harrison at 3 p.m. Session 2 will follow with Campbell-Marietta at 5:30 p.m., and then McEachern will face the Kennesaw Mountain-South Cobb winner at 7:p.m. Hillgrove will face the North Cobb-Harrison winner at 8:30 p.m.

All the semifinal games will be played Saturday at McEachern, with the championship game Monday.

The GHSA has encouraged region tournament organizers to have their tournaments completed by Saturday if possible, with the option of Monday as an alternate day for completion. Because of that, the GHSA moved the start of the state tournaments to next Wednesday to allow a day for teams to practice and prepare for their first-round games.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the GHSA has not revised its scheduling.

“Hopefully, we can get started Friday afternoon,” Dorsey said. “If Friday’s games are cancelled it will fall back in the hands of the (GHSA), because then we’ll have to finish on Tuesday, or begin having to decide which teams don’t get to compete in the tournament. And, that’s never a good idea.”

Region 5AAAAA was originally to play a similar schedule to that of Region 4AAAAAA, but first- and second-round games were scheduled for multiple sites before the tournament shifts to Villa Rica for the semifinal and championship games.

Now, with all the cancellations, tournament organizers not only need new times for games, but new locations, too.

Allatoona is the No. 1 seed and was scheduled to host two games Wednesday. That can no longer happen because the gymnasium is unavailable with a large gymnastics tournament scheduled for the weekend.

Allatoona athletic director Benji Morrell said there likely won’t be a plan in place until at least this afternoon.

“I’ve seen seven scenarios,” he said. “One is to let everyone play and play two games in one day. Teams would have to play at 11 a.m. and then probably come back at 7 p.m. Another is to take the four top seeds and say, ‘You are going to state.’ Have them play Saturday and Monday to determine a champion.

“I just know I don’t want to have to play two games in one day.”

Etowah athletic director Robert Van Alstyne said his plan is for the Region 5AAAAAA tournament to start Friday with girls games at 5 p.m., 6:30 p.m., and 8 p.m. in one gymnasium, with boys games at 4 p.m., 5:30 p.m., 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. in a second gym.

The exact matchups had not been determined Wednesday afternoon.

There is one fewer girls game on the schedule as Roswell was scheduled to faced Milton in an opening-round game Monday.

The second day of the 5AAAAAA tournament would consist of the four semifinal games, with the final day set for the championships.

With Region 7AAAAA consisting of schools from four different counties — Cobb, Cherokee, Forsyth and Fulton — the tournament at Sequoyah High School will resume Friday with an eight-game marathon.

The schedule will begin at 10 a.m. with four games taking place during the day, with matchups between teams from Cobb, Forsyth and Fulton counties, which will be on their respective mid-winter breaks. Cherokee County students will still be in school Friday, so games involving Creekview and Sequoyah would be played between 4 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.

Region 6A consolidated its tournament, limiting the participants to the top four seeds in each subregion.

The girls tournament is scheduled to begin today with four quarterfinal games at the Darlington School in Rome. The semifinals would be Friday with the championship game Saturday.

If today’s games are postponed, the tournament would begin Friday with the championships Monday.

The boys tournament will follow the same schedule, with the quarterfinal games at Trion High School, followed by the semifinals and finals at Darlington.

The Georgia High School Association made an additional move Monday to consolidate the traditional state wrestling championships into a two-day event — Friday and Saturday. GHSA associate director Denis Tallini, who oversees wrestling for the state association, said the decision to change the start of the tournament to Friday is to make sure everyone can travel safely to and from the event at the Arena at the Gwinnett Center in Duluth.

You don't get it do you? IF you have been reading the blogs, you should get it by now. I don't care if they cheated either. I just want the rules to be followed by all. People have gone to Cobb and they did nothing about it other than try to hide the information that was brought to them. They don't want to hear it so now people are speaking up more until they handle their business.

I will sign it but it wont do you much good. You need to take what you have and send it to all the media outlets. If half of what you say is true, they will have a field day with it. It is obviously undue influence, so let the media deal with it if Cobb doesn't want to. Look, if Cobb was going to do something they would have by now. Send it to the news.

I hate to disappoint everyone, but it doesn't look like any games are going to be played with all this snow. I just don't see it melting enough. So, it would be a great time to reinvestigate McEachern and do the right thing before the tournament starts. Come on people, just call the Kell coaches. Look at the blog from the last McEachern article. There aren't many articles getting this type of attention. Please do what is right by our kids!

Mceachern is a bunch of straight up cheaters. This sounds like the liberal media when they say an investigation was done and nothing was found. What a joke. They are all in on this. Montgomery Dorsey. Arthur. Cooper. By the way Omar cooper has a felony on his record and has his on his key to the mceachern facilities to work with kids.

Let it rest

|

February 13, 2014

You can transfer to any school within Cobb County as long as they have room for you. Obviously if someone had some "proof" it would have came out by now. I'm not even a McEachern fan but I do get tired of the same poster posting on ALL of the articles on MDJ about McEachern. Let it rest...If YOU have proof move forward with it and let it be known...if not LET IT REST!!

Give Us A Break

|

February 13, 2014

I could care less if McEachern is cheating or not. If you have proof, step up to the plate yourself and go to the Cobb Board. Every week, every article is the same old stuff. Give us all a break and stop with all the talk....man/woman up and go step up to the board yourself if it's that important to you.

Trying to Move

|

February 13, 2014

If you want us to move on, then contact Steve Jones, Ralph Swearngin or Tracie Doe and get them to speak to the Kell coaches so we here both sides of the story. Until that happens, we will all keep posting. Eventually everyone will know what is going on because if this doesn't get handled, the media will get a hold of it. Sorry to have to be annoying, but it isn't my fault!

*We welcome your comments on the stories and issues of the day and seek to provide a forum for the community to voice opinions. All comments are subject to moderator approval before being made visible on the website but are not edited. The use of profanity, obscene and vulgar language, hate speech, and racial slurs is strictly prohibited. Advertisements, promotions, and spam will also be rejected. Please read our terms of service for full guides